Falling: Season 2
by FantasiaWandering
Summary: It's been a year since Donatello caught her for the first time, and though April now knows that her new family will never let her fall, that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of challenges they still have to face. The adventure continues in Season Two of "Falling." (Cover art by yipyop)
1. Picking up the Pieces (an interlude)

_Oh look, a new Falling! I realize the old one was getting a bit unwieldy, so while I'll continue updating that one with Season 1 stories, this is the new place for Falling: Season 2!_

_This interlude takes place immediately after Slash and Destroy, and covers a little bit of where April was during this episode._

* * *

**Picking up the Pieces (an interlude)**

Donnie stared down at the letter in his hand, and for a rare moment, all other thoughts in his head were silent as he attempted to process exactly what it was that he was looking at. "Is… is this for real?"

April's feet swung gently as she perched on his desk, her blue eyes unusually serious. "Yeah. I mean, I had to use my name on the forms, and my aunt doesn't really know what to think, but… it's for real. It's happening."

"What is happening?"

Donnie looked over as the soft voice drifted from the doorway, sighing as Splinter entered with Leo in tow. Wordlessly, he held up the letter to his father, and watched the confusion on the rat's features as he scanned the letter. Splinter looked up at Donnie with a question in his eyes. "I do not understand."

"Donnie…" Leo's glanced shifted from Donnie to April. "What's going on?"

With a quiet groan, Donnie sagged back in his chair, resting his arm against the desk next to April, and it was a measure of his tangled thoughts that it only brought a small smile to his face when April moved her hand to his arm in silent support.

"It's the equipment I invented to monitor Timothy." He glanced over at monitors surrounding the frozen form in the corner as a pang of guilt shot through him. April's hand tightened on his arm, and he brought up his free hand to cover hers. "I was doing some reading through medical journals, seeing if I could get any ideas on how to improve it, and I kinda realized that what I'd made could do things that current tech can't. So I sorta… patented it."

"You _what?"_ Leo exclaimed, staring at him in disbelief.

Donnie frowned at him. "Well, not _me._ I can't exactly walk into the patent office looking like _this_." He blinked, biting his lip a little, and peeped up at his _sensei, _who was still staring incredulously at the letter. "April did."

"I filled out all the paperwork, but Donnie's co-credited on the patent," April clarified. "The ideas are all Donnie's. I just did the legwork."

"And as it turns out… they want it." Donnie shifted again, lowering his hands to his lap so he could fidget with the tape around his fingers. "Apparently the medical community could… what were the words?"

"Benefit greatly from this contribution to humanity," April said.

"Yeah." Donnie looked up again. "I'm getting paid for it. A lot, as it turns out."

"It's coming to my account, but of course it's all yours." A wry grin touched April's face. "At least they've stopped complaining about my grades in trig. My aunt was kind of confused, but I _am_ a Science Olympian."

With a soft sound of concern, Splinter passed the letter to Leo. Donnie watched Leo's eyes widen as he skimmed the letter, and a small squeak burst from him as he reached the part with all the zeroes.

"This is an event of monumental importance, and it is true that this will be of great help to our family." Splinter paused, and Donnie closed his eyes momentarily as Splinter rested his hand on Donnie's shoulder, the familiar feeling of comfort and support from his sensei washing through him and easing some of the conflict within him. "But I do not understand why so fortuitous an event seems to trouble you so."

Donnie opened his eyes again, letting his gaze drift toward the monster in the corner who had once been a lost and somewhat clueless kid who'd looked up to him. "It just feels like I'm profiting off what we did to Timothy and I'm not… I'm not sure how to handle that. I mean, that money'll buy a few things that will help with my research, but it's not like it's gonna bring him _back."_

"Hmm." Splinter folded his hands behind his back, regarding Donatello with patient thoughtfulness. "It is indeed an ethical dilemma. But if you cannot use it to help Timothy, perhaps there is another issue in which we share responsibility that might benefit from this sudden affluence?"

"Umm," Leo lowered the letter, holding up a tentative hand. "Can I make a suggestion?"

* * *

It was really cold out. She shivered, holding Ruffles McBearington closer. It had been snowing a little bit earlier, but that had stopped now, which was good. The snow was getting in the holes in her room, and she didn't want it snowing on her things. They'd only been able to take a few things with them to the place they were staying while their house was broken, and she was worried about her other toys. Her nose wrinkled a little as she thought about that other place. It was really crowded, and it smelled kind of funny sometimes, and she didn't like how they had to eat and share the TV with a whole bunch of other families.

She shivered as she looked up at the house again. Daddy was close by, arguing with the man who was supposed to fix their house. She wasn't sure why the man wasn't fixing it, or what an insurance was, or why whatever insurance was wouldn't fit over their house -– why would you want to cover a house, anyway? -– but whatever it was, it was making Daddy really sad, so she didn't like it. Daddy had told her the other day that Santa might not be able to find them this year if there was a hole in their house, but she wasn't sure she believed him. She was used to not having as many toys and things as her friends, and instead of going to the big stores like her friends did, they usually got her things from little places like the man who had sold them the lamp full of green tea. But Santa was magic. Even if there was a hole in her house, Santa should still be able to find them. That's what Santa was _for._

She looked up again, and frowned. Daddy looked like he was going to cry. He'd cried a few times since the big turtles made the holes in her room and the other parts of the house fell down and the men with the bills had come. Setting her jaw, she pushed herself off the front stoop and marched toward where Daddy and the bad insurance man were fighting. She was going to give him a piece of her mind. If the insurance man didn't start being good, Santa wouldn't be visiting _anyone_ this year.

But before she could reach Daddy, someone else did.

The lady had pretty red hair, and was wearing a fancy suit like office ladies wore, even though she was kind of tippy in her fancy shoes, and she was talking to herself a little, like she had an imaginary friend. But she stopped talking to herself once she saw Daddy, straightening up and clearing her throat as she pulled an envelope out of a bag she was carrying.

"Oh, there you are," she said, but stopped and put a hand up to her ear, turning to make a face at the rooftop across the road. "This is your lucky day, sir! I represent -_ I know_ - a corporation called -_ ow!_" She glanced up again, glaring as something from the rooftop hit the back of her head. "A corporation called _O'NEIL TECH!_" She looked back at Daddy and cleared her throat. "And I'm very pleased to inform you that you are the recipient of this year's Holiday Endorsement Bursary Foundation Endowment Appreciation Award."

Daddy stared at the nice lady, who kicked at the thing that had hit her head. It looked like a chestnut, but that was silly. There weren't any chestnut trees around. Just the man down the street who sold them out of a cart, but he went home ages ago.

One of Daddy's eyebrows lifted. "Aren't you a little young to represent a corporation?"

"I get that a lot," the lady said. "But when you're representing a corporation as large as ours, it's important to look your best. Whoa!"She teetered for a minute in her shoes before she steadied herself and gave Daddy a big smile.

"I don't understand," Daddy told the nice lady.

"Every year at this time, O'Neil Tech- _ow!_" She kicked away another chestnut. "-gives an endorsement to a family in need, and this year we picked you. Congratulations!" She passed the envelope to Daddy.

Daddy opened the envelope slowly, pulling out a piece of paper, and his face went white as he covered his mouth with his hand. She hugged Ruffles closer, not sure what was going on as Daddy's eyes filled with tears again. But now he was yelling, and hugging the nice lady so hard that she was off the ground, and one of her fancy shoes fell off as Daddy jumped around with her.

"Sir, that's- oof - I'm very glad you're - urk - I _can't breathe!"_

Daddy let out a yelp as a chestnut hit _him_ this time, and put the nice lady back on her feet. The nice lady stumbled over to where her shoe had fallen, and stuck her tongue out at it before putting it back on her foot. The nice lady saw that she was watching, and reached out to tousle her hair and pat Ruffles McBearington. "This is a bad time of year to have a hole in your house," she said, struggling back to her feet and wobbling before she caught her balance. "Hopefully, this should cover it."

"It will," Daddy said, wiping his eyes. "And then some."

* * *

After the nice lady gave them the envelope with the paper in it, the men didn't fight with Daddy anymore. The holes in their house were fixed really fast, and the place where they were staying until the work was done was much nicer this time, with big comfy beds and a TV in their room and room service that brought good food to them. Even so, it was nice to be back in her own bed. She lay there, long after Daddy had tucked her in and kissed her good night, she wondered how the nice lady had known that their house had holes in it, and whether the bad turtles would come back to make more.

There was a soft sound from the darkness, and she opened her eyes. There was a new nightlight on her bedside table - she'd been missing one since the green tea lamp that was supposed to have replaced her old broken one disappeared - and in the soft pink light, she could see a funny little squashed teapot on her tea table with a bright red bow around the handle. Two cups sat next to the pot, steam rising from the warm tea inside them. She smiled, burying her head against the pillow, and blinked sleepily.

"Thank you, Mr. Turtle."

And out of the shadows by her window came a soft, whispered, "you're welcome."

She snuggled deeper beneath the cover as her window slid closed. She could sleep now. No more worrying about bad turtles making holes in her room. She had a good turtle now to take care of her.


	2. Panacea (an interlude)

_I usually try to write things so that you don't have to have read anything else in Falling, but this interlude is something of a sequel to Caduceus, and won't make that much sense if you haven't read it. It takes place post-"Slash and Destroy."_

* * *

**Panacea (an interlude)**

There was a chill in the air that bit into him as he moved across the rooftops. Good. The pain would keep him moving. Keep him sharp. He had a lot of work ahead of him if he was going to put things right.

He'd been sloppy. That was the problem. He'd underestimated just how deep those other three had their hooks into Raph. Dragging him down. Making him weak. He should never have let Raph see when he dealt with them. Raph couldn't take it. They'd made him too soft. Which ruled out going back to the lair to finish them off - not yet, anyway. If the brothers were bad, the rat was even worse. But there were other things that he _could_ take care of. Other loose ends that would be easier to tie off. Leaving Raph unburdened. Making him free.

And a lesson about how friends didn't throw friends off of buildings couldn't hurt, either.

Slash raised his head, scenting the wind. Still there. Still ridiculously easy to track. The scent wasn't as strong as one of the canisters, but she still stank of Kraang. Skidding to a halt, he peered over the edge of the rooftop; a small smile of victory crept across his face as he spotted the girl, red hair bright against the darkness.

_Gotcha._

He swung down from the roof, dropping to the concealing gloom of the back alleys as he maneuvered into position. One of the streetlights down the road was out. The timing couldn't be better. Grab her, knock her senseless, but don't do too much damage. No, the damage would be done when he brought her back downtown and threw her from the nearest rooftop onto the grate above the dojo. Message delivered.

Shadows slid around him like smoke as he made his way toward her, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat. She had this coming. Always hanging around, taking up Raph's attention with her stupid computer, getting Raph into trouble. This whole situation was her fault. Raph would never have gotten involved with the Kraang and mutagen if she hadn't been there.

His eyes narrowed behind the black mask, and as the darkness at the mouth of the alley swallowed her, he struck.

She was fast, he gave her that much. He'd meant to take her by surprise, but she was already moving by the time he reached her, drawing that stupid fan out from wherever it was that she kept it. Before she could flick it open, his hand was around hers, engulfing it and half her arm in the process. Stupid tiny weak human. He could rip her arm clean offwithout even thinking twice about it. She was so frail. So weak. But no, that would be too much. She'd never make it back to the lair alive if he did that. So he settled for yanking her off her feet and tossing her into the nearest wall.

The rising wind swallowed her cry, and the impact of her head against the wall cut it short. She crumpled to the ground, groaning and dazed, and he smiled as he moved toward her. Too easy. Curling his fingers slowly into a fist, relishing the sensation of power that ran through him as his claws dug into his palm, he raised his fist above her head. The wind shifted again, carrying her scent to him, and he breathed deeply of his victim, drinking in the stink of the weakness that he was about to eliminate from the world.

But there was something else beneath the stench. Something soft. Sweet. Familiar...

**_Fear. Fear, and pain, and the panic in big brother's eyes. Big brother is afraid. Big brother is never afraid. Big brother is giving him away NO! Why? Brother, WHY? But then soft hands, and warmth, wrapping him against the cold. Movement, and white walls, and a steel table, COLD, and more hands, and prodding, and _****pain****_, _****it HURTS, but****_ then the gentle hands are back, and a quiet voice, and the warmth, and a strong heartbeat pounding beneath him as the sweetly-scented warmth surrounds him and shelters him against the cold._**

**_"There you go, buddy. You're gonna be just fine. Now let's get you back to Raph so we can get you all patched up, huh?"_**

**_The brush of lips, soft and sweet against his head, and he curls up against the warmth, knowing that he is safe, and loved, and will come to no further harm so long as he remains in her arms._**

His fist trembled, frozen in the air, but it wouldn't fall. Slash stared down at the limp form at his feet, the tendrils of her scent coiling around him, and for a moment, just a moment, he no longer felt the cold.

* * *

It didn't take her long after that to wake up, groggy and disoriented, and of course she called for the turtles as soon as she could make her fingers work the phone. Typical. From the concealment of the shadows on the roof across the street, he watched as they swarmed over her, comical in their panic. That's what attachments did. They made you a fool. Pathetic.

It was Raph who lifted her into his arms, and as her head lolled against his shoulder, Raph looked up, those green eyes searching the darkness where Slash hid. Despite himself, Slash shrank back. Raphael couldn't possibly know - the girl had barely seen him, and even if she had, she was too out of it to say much anyway. But the rage in Raph's eyes burned through the cold, and for an instant, Slash was afraid.

Then Raph looked away and followed his brothers back into the sewers, carrying the girl with him. More dead weight dragging him down. Shaking his head in disgust, Slash moved off, striking back out across the city.

He'd do it eventually. Prune back the deadfall, bit by bit, strengthening Raphael in the process like a blade forged by fire. The pain would temper him. Eliminate the softness. Then Raph would be strong enough to accept Slash as his partner, the way it was meant to be.

But, he thought as he leaped to another rooftop, shivering as the cold sought out the chinks in his shell, there was no reason he had to do it alone. No reason why he had to waste his time on weaklings who weren't worth his attention. There were plenty of mutants running around the city by now who had a beef against the turtles. He'd find one of them_. _Get them riled up. And then he could let _them_ take care of the girl.

The winter wind dragged against him, washing over his skin, until the last traces of that sickly-sweet warmth were gone.


	3. Onions (an interlude)

_Here's one more to round out the set, from a drabble posted on my tumlbr_.

* * *

**Onions**

"You know what you need?"

Wincing, April looked up at Mikey. The bump on her head had gone down significantly overnight, but it had left a dull ache behind, along with a wealth of bruising. Bruising that matched his, truth be told.

"I dunno," she said. "What?"

"Chicken soup!" He grabbed her arm — the one that wasn't mottled with dark bruising from the attacker she hadn't even seen — and started dragging her toward the stairs.

"What—Mikey—whoa!" She stumbled after him, struggling to keep her balance. Not that she actually thought he'd let her fall. He'd been almost overwhelmingly attentive since they'd found her in the alley. "I'd love to oblige, but you know Donnie's grounded me on account of possible head trauma."

"Pssh, we're not going topside, sis. We're gonna make it!" He grinned over his shoulder at her. "Nothin' cures what ails ya like homemade chicken soup!"

April raised a brow, then stopped, because it hurt. "It's not gonna have pizza in it, is it?"

"Naw, that's for making stuff _interesting. _Not _healthy._" He ducked through the doorway, courteously holding the curtain aside until she could pass through, his other hand still on her elbow to steady her.

"No algae and worms, either."

"You gotta stop hatin' on the algae and worms, girl. It's offensive to my culture." He grinned at her. "But naw, this is_ your_ soup. Nothing you don't want in it."

He didn't let go of her until she was seated at the table, whereupon he went to the cupboards and rummaged through them, pulling out a cutting board and setting it and a knife in front of her. "You can help chop stuff."

But as he shoved a pile of vegetables toward her, turning away quickly to pull a can of chicken stock off the shelf, she couldn't help frowning a little. "Mikey? You okay?"

"Huh?" he glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression unguarded for just a moment before the jovial grin was back in place. "Sure! I mean, you can't fix everything with soup. But it's a start, right?"

April's eyes widened in sudden understanding. They'd told her what happened, and since they'd brought her back, she'd watched Raph alternate between extreme doting on his family and moments of quiet, intense brooding, and the more Mikey tried to cheer Raph out of it, the worse it got. She understood. She was no stranger to loss like the one Raph had suffered. But she also knew what helped make it feel a bit better. And knew that Raph was going to need a little help getting there.

She pulled the cutting board toward her, selecting the largest onion and driving through it with a savage chop. An instant later, she let out a cry that had Mikey leaping to her side, his massive hands grabbing hers and turning them anxiously. "What happened? Did you cut yourself? Do I need to get Donnie?"

"No," she said lighltly, then raised her voice. "_**I'm just having some trouble with these onions.**_**"**

Mikey winced, clearing out an ear with his finger. "Geez, April, I don't think they heard you in Poughkeepsie."

"Have patience, grasshopper," April murmured sagely.

A second later, the curtain over the doorway jerked aside, and Raph stormed into the kitchen. Without a word, he stomped up to the table and plonked himself down on the opposite side, reaching across and yanking the cutting board over. "Then let someone who knows what they're doing have a go."

He hacked savagely through the onions, making short work of them. And as he chopped, a slow, steady stream of tears trickled down his face. He looked up once, catching April and Mikey staring at him, and frowned. "What? It's the _onions._"

"Of course it is," April said, and quietly started peeling a carrot.

"Ohhhh," Mikey breathed in her ear. "Girl, you are gooood."

"I know." She looked up at him. "I've had practice."

Without another word, Mikey reached over and hugged her tightly from behind before moving back to the counter to deal with the chicken. Slowly, the pile of vegetables grew, and the comforting, homey smell of chicken soup began to filter through the lair, and a great deal of heated argument took place on the subject of spices, and by the time they were sitting down to eat it, all three of them were laughing so hard that there was no need for the onions anymore.


	4. Family Traditions

_Happy Holidays, everyone. This was a birthday/Christmas present for my wonderful friend Sameth. I hope that this season finds you warm and safe and surrounded by loved ones, just as April is._

* * *

**Family Traditions**

The brass ornament in her hands glittered in the rainbow lights of the tree. She traced a finger over it, reacquainting herself with the familiar lines of the reclining unicorn with the wreath of holly around her neck, and the neat, cursive "April" engraved on the unicorn's flank. With a soft, wistful smile, she reached up to place it in the branches of the tree, currently fragrant with the very nice artificial pine scent they had bought as a compromise so that April could have a tree that smelled like a proper tree, and Kirby didn't have to put up with hayfever all Christmas.

Her smile slipped a little at that, but she'd promised herself she wouldn't think about the large, dad-shaped hole in her life right now. This was not a time for being sad. Setting the little unicorn in its place, she stepped back with her hands on her hips and stared at it with satisfaction as it danced and caught the light.

"Does that one have a story?" a soft voice at her shoulder asked. She turned with a smirk. "Leo, I told you, they _all_ have stories." She gestured toward the unicorn. "Mom wanted something special for my first Christmas. Something that would last a really long time."

"And she liked unicorns?" Leo rested his elbow against her shoulder, looking at the ornament.

"Not particularly," April said, grinning at the story she'd heard time and time again. "But she kept putting it off, and putting it off, and finally, the last place open that'd do it on Christmas Eve had two ornaments left: this one and a dinosaur."

"A dinosaur would've been less lame," said Raph from where he sat in the pit pretending he wasn't listening.

"Maybe," April said. "But there was a little boy there who really wanted the dinosaur, and Mom couldn't say no once she looked into his eyes. Besides—" Mikey had started making popcorn chains before he'd been distracted by dinner preparation and wandered off; April picked up a handful of popcorn from the abandoned bowl next to the tree and tossed it at Raph. "—in some stories, unicorns are giant creatures with blood-red faces who breathe poison and impale their enemies with their horns."

That made him glance up from his comic. "Seriously?"

"Yup," she said.

"Huh." Raph picked up a kernel of popcorn and chewed on it thoughtfully. "I may have to reassess the coolness of unicorns."

Grinning, April took another ornament from a snickering Leo. She had been uncertain when Splinter had invited her to bring her holiday stuff to the lair, for though her aunt had her own decorations, meaning that April had had nowhere to put hers up, she hadn't known how she'd feel this year indulging in traditions that had always been between her and her dad. But she had to admit, aside from a pang or two here and there, she was actually having fun. Far more than she had thought she could, given the circumstances—

Catching herself, she gave herself a little mental shake. _Not thinking about that._

"April!" Donnie appeared in the doorway of his lab, beaming fit to burst. "I found it!"

April gasped. "You didn't!" She clapped her hands gleefully. "I thought it was gone forever!"

Donnie sauntered over to the TV and plugged a flash drive into the USB interface he'd installed. "Oh ye of little faith. I keep telling you, if a file exists on the internet, I can find it." Grabbing the remote, he punched a button and the TV came to life, filling the lair with happy, tinkling music as a host of stop-motion animated elves danced across the screen.

Laughing, April threw her arms around Donnie and hugged him tightly. "Thank you, Donnie! It wouldn't be a proper Christmas without _Adventures in the Land of Ice and Snow_!"

"You're losing cool points again," Raph muttered.

April turned her head to stick her tongue out at him before returning her attention to Donnie, rising up on her toes so that she could kiss his cheek in thanks. That got a giggle out of him, but he returned her enthusiastic hug instead of falling over this time, for which she was very glad. She knew it was a silly little kids' Christmas special. But for April, it was as much a Christmas tradition as the tree and the turkey, and she'd been heartbroken to open the box this year only to find the DVD snapped in half. But before she had been able to let herself get worked up over it, Donnie had come to her rescue, as he always did.

Raph rolled his eyes and abandoned his comic, wandering off in the direction of the kitchen as the magic of the elves ramped up to extreme levels of cheese. Donnie and Leo exchanged a glance, but smiled good-naturedly as April danced her way around the tree, humming along with the songs she had memorized as a little girl. The rest of the ornaments were quickly distributed, the more delicate ones passed off to Donnie so that he could hang them up high, and as the intrepid elves battled their way through the Path of Forgetful Frost, Leo helped her finish off Mikey's popcorn chain so that they could hang that, too. And if half the popcorn was consumed in the process, it was between them and Santa Claus.

Finally, April stood back and surveyed the finished tree with a nod of satisfaction. "Only one thing left," she said. Returning to the boxes of Christmas supplies the guys had helped her drag from storage, she picked up an old, battered shoebox. Lifting the lid, she carefully parted the tissue inside to reveal the antique angel. It had belonged to her grandfather, and rather than being one of those frou-frou collections of fur and glitter that proliferated the shelves today, it looked like it had flown straight out of a renaissance painting – a little ironic, given her present company, she thought with a smile. The angel lifted a long trumpet to his lips, his blue robes sculpted to look like they were blowing in an unseen breeze.

"When I was little," she said, "Dad used to lift me up so I could put it on the top. I know it's silly, but it always made me feel really special." She looked over at the two turtles with a sheepish grin. "I guess… I felt like I was flying with the angel, you know?" Cradling the angel carefully between her hands, she rose to her feet and offered it to Donnie.

Leo and Donnie exchanged another one of those looks, and before she quite knew what was happening, strong green hands seized her around the waist. Her stomach fluttered a little as her feet left the ground, and she found herself staring down into the smiling faces of her adopted brothers as Donnie held her high enough to reach the top.

Feeling her cheeks growing red, she reached out and secured the angel to the top of the tree using the extremely high-tech solution of her dad's devising – an elastic band around the angel's sculpted wings, which had come off and been re-glued countless times over the course of her childhood. Once the angel was secure, Donnie lowered her back to the ground, and as she looked up at the finished tree, she was smiling so hard it almost hurt.

"Beautiful," she said, staring up at the tree.

"…yeah," Donnie sighed, staring at April. Leo elbowed him in the side and he let out a little 'whuff,' clearing his throat and refocusing his attention on the tree.

Shaking her head fondly, April reached out and drew both of the turtles close, her arms around as much of their shells as she could reach. As the solid weight of their arms settled across her shoulders, she leaned her head against Leo's arm. "Thanks, guys," she said, and her voice only betrayed the tightness in her throat a little. "I mean it. I…I missed this."

"It's our pleasure, April," Donnie said in all sincerity.

"Besides which, Mikey's loved this stuff since we first discovered Christmas specials on cable," Leo added dryly. "It's nice to actually do it properly for a change."

"Oh, that reminds me!" Ducking out from under their arms and ignoring the little "awww!" from Donnie, she ran to the pile of bags she'd dragged with her and hauled the largest of them over. "It's not a proper tree without presents!"

The faded tree skirt covered in glittering silver sequined snowflakes had caught her eye when she was eleven, and she'd fallen instantly in love with it, so much so that her dad had kept it long after its natural lifespan. Smoothing it out and resettling a few loose sequins, April drew several large, brightly-wrapped boxes out of her bag and distributed them under the tree. "There!" she exclaimed. "That's—"

"_Raphael!_" Mikey's infuriated voice burst from the kitchen. "If you keep picking at that turkey before it's cooked properly, you're gonna get worms, I swear! You had better—"

There was a moment of silence, followed by a scream of horror that had Leo, April, and Donnie sprinting for the kitchen. They burst through the curtain, Leo just slightly in the lead, and he skidded to a halt, a tanto in his hand despite the fact that they were supposed to keep weapons in the dojo when they weren't using them and it hadn't been apparent anywhere on him just seconds earlier. "What?" Leo looked around frantically. "What's wrong? Mutants? Aliens?"

A look of rage on his face that April rarely ever saw, Mikey pointed an accusing finger at Raph. "He _ate _the chestnuts!"

Raph, his eyes wide, swallowed and held up his hands. "What? I like chestnuts!"

Mikey grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and launched himself at Raph with a bloodcurdling screech. Grabbing a soup ladle, Raph put up a valiant defense, but an enraged Mikey tended to take everyone by surprise. Within moments, Raph had been disarmed and pinned against the counter as April and the others watched in astonishment.

"I needed those chestnuts for the stuffing!" Mikey growled. "Without chestnuts, there's no stuffing, and then April's Christmas will be _ruined_!" He jabbed a finger in April's direction. "Look at that face! Do you want to tell her that you _ruined her Christmas?_"

"Honestly, I'm fine without the—" April began.

"Fine!" Raph huffed. "I'll get the stupid chesntuts."

"Great!" Instantly cheerful again, Mikey kissed Raph's head before letting him go, good-naturedly taking Raph's subsequent punch in the arm. "Be back in an hour."

April coughed in an attempt to stifle her grin. "I'd better come. It'll make the transaction part a lot easier."

"I'll come too," Donnie said immediately.

"Fine," Raph said. "You get her coat, I'll get the weapons."

"I can get my own coat," April said, scowling a little.

Raph laid a hand on her shoulder. "_You_ need to reassure _him_._"_

Back over at the counter, Mikey was poking forlornly at the dishes he was preparing. April rolled her eyes and gave Raph a quiet "fine" before she butted her head against his. He grinned at her and slipped out of the kitchen after Donnie, leaving April and Leo to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Mikey.

She crossed over to him, putting her arm around his shoulders. "Mikey," she said gently. "I'm going to be happy no matter what you make."

He looked up at her, his blue eyes wide. "But this dinner is supposed to be special."

April's smile widened, and she hugged him tightly. "Anything you make is gonna be special." She grinned at him, and tapped his nose. "But leave it to me. I'll make sure we get you what you need."

Mikey answered her smile with one of his own, and gave her a rib-cracking hug before letting her escape to the others. "All right, Leo," she heard as she let the curtain fall behind her. "If this dinner is gonna be ready in time, you're gonna have to let _me_ be the leader now…"

Rejoining the others, April accepted her coat and scarf from Donnie as Raph descended the dojo steps, tossing Donnie's bō to him as April struggled into her things. Zipping up her coat, she fell into step with the boys as they headed topside. As she looked from one to the other, she couldn't help but smile – the last time she'd been between the two of them like this, it had been on her first visit to the lair over a year ago. It was hard to believe that it had been that long, and yet she was also having trouble remembering a time when the guys hadn't been in her life.

The conversation as they ambled through the tunnels was light, drifting from the best vegetable side dish to serve with a turkey dinner, to the elves' battle with the Fearsome Frost Giant, to the very serious matter of who would win in a fight: Santa Claus or Frosty the Snowman. Finally, they reached the right exit, and April found herself flanked by overprotective turtles, one in front of her and one behind as they ascended the ladder to street level. She rolled her eyes a little at that – they were just buying chestnuts – but it was kind of sweet, in an annoying sort of way.

Raph went up first, scanning the area before giving the all-clear and letting April up. She smirked as she pushed herself up, accepting his hand and letting his incredible strength take most of her weight as he hauled her out. "Good thing you checked," she said. "Wouldn't wanna get taken down by a chestnut vendor."

"Hey, those nut guys can be sneaky," Raph fired back with a grin. "They've gotta have some way to protect all that deliciousness."

"Is that the guy?" Donnie asked, looking across the road at the man standing by a cart, steam rising over his head from the roasting chestnuts.

"Yeah," April said, patting his shoulder. "I'll be right back."

Securing her scarf more firmly around her neck, April sprinted across the road to the chestnut cart, relishing the warmth of the sweetly-scented steam as she exchanged holiday greetings with the chestnut seller. After a moment of frenzied negotiation, she forked over all of the cash she had on her in exchange for as many chestnuts as she could carry.

The heat of the chestnuts burned through her mittens, but she took solace in the fact that she didn't have far to go before strong, scaled hands with thicker calluses than she had could relieve her of her burden. She was almost to the mouth of the alley, intently focused on her goal, when a dark shape loomed in front of her and she was overwhelmed by the scent of sweat, booze, and tobacco. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she found herself looking up into the sneering face of an unfamiliar man sporting a host of purple dragon tattoos.

"Looks like you got a lot of cash to throw around, girlie," he said as he leered at her.

"Back off, creep," April snapped, debating whether to drop the chestnuts and go for her tessen. It would be a shame – she didn't want the nuts to go to waste for a sleazebag like this. "I spent all my money on chestnuts."

His expression grew more predatory as he invaded her personal space even further. "There's other ways I can take a paym—oof!"

A green fist in his face cut off anything else he was going to say, and he staggered back, blinking in terrified astonishment at the shadow that loomed behind April.

"That is no way to talk to a lady!" Donnie's voice was sharp with rage.

A second fist caught the gang member on the other cheek, spinning him around with the force of the blow, and he went down in a boneless heap. Emerging from the shadows opposite, Raph glared down at the unconscious dragon. "Yeah! Nobody gets to be a jerk to April but me!"

"Aww, Raph, that was almost sweet," April said.

Donnie laid a hand on her shoulder as he looked down at her in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Of course. He didn't even touch me. I'm glad I didn't have to drop these, though." She passed half the chestnuts off to Donnie. "Here. Careful, they're—"

The rest of her words dissolved into a cry of alarm as something wound around her from behind and yanked her off her feet. She could hear Donnie screaming her name from below her, but all her attention was focused on the gaping maw looming in front of her. The… the _thing_ clung to the side of the building about halfway up, and the strange, whiplike appendage that had pinned her arms to her sides was coming from its mouth. A mouth that was wide open beneath the eerily glowing head, sharp incisors dripping with saliva as a second head shot out from within the mouth to snap at the chestnuts she still held.

_Wait…. Is this thing a _squirrel?

She shrieked again, ducking her head as the inner jaws snapped at her, just before a green streak plunged from above. She had just enough time to see the gleam of light off a sai before it sliced through the appendage holding her. It went abruptly slack, and April slipped from its grasp, plunging to the ground below. Green hands caught her before she struck the pavement, and she was on her feet in another instant, chestnuts raining around her as Donnie shoved her behind him.

April flicked open her tessen as Raph landed next to them. "Anyone want to tell me what that thing is?"

"Squirrelanoid," Raph said. "Long story."

"Heads up, there's more than one!" Donnie called, and April spun to catch sight of the tail of another disappearing around the mouth of the alley in which they stood. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she realized exactly what they were doing.

"They're taking the chestnuts! We've gotta stop them!" She made it three steps toward the retreating squirrelanoid before impossibly strong hands locked around both of her wrists. Glaring, she tugged sharply against their restraining hands as both brothers held her back.

"Are you _crazy?_" they chorused in unison.

"I spent the last of my money on those chestnuts!" she snapped back. "If we don't get them back, Mikey will have nothing to use for the stuffing, and he'll think he's ruined my Christmas, and then my Christmas really _will _be ruined!" She shook them off and planted her hands on her hips. "Do either of you want that?"

They looked at each other helplessly, and Raph heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"No," he said. "But April, trust me, you do _not_ want to mess with these things. They—"

She would never hear what Raph had to say about them though, for as he spoke, the darkness behind him roiled with a sickly green glow, and a half-dozen more of the creatures burst from the shadows, throwing both of the brothers into a wall as they surged toward April. Her scream was swallowed by a tide of glowing, screeching mutants as clawed hands enveloped her, and everything went dark.

* * *

She awoke slowly, her head pounding, and she immediately had to fight to keep from heaving at the stench that assailed her. Cracking her eyes slowly open, keeping very, very still, she found herself lying on a pile of leaf litter and branches, the walls arcing away into a sphere over her head. Far overhead, there was an opening in the sphere, which let in a thin, sickly green glow. Struggling to keep her breathing calm, she pushed herself gingerly to her knees.

As she moved, her hand came down on something that shifted beneath her, and she caught her breath as a soft pattering echoed through the nest. Looking down, she discovered that all of the stolen chestnuts had been piled at her feet, and something about the sight of all the nuts filled her with a flash of seething rage. Yanking her scarf from around her neck, she used it to belt her coat firmly at her waist, gathered up the chestnuts, and stuffed them into her coat, zipping it up tightly. Once she had accomplished that, she set about trying to find a way out of her prison.

Her foot hit something hard, and she glanced down, recoiling in horror at the skull grinning back up at her. "Okay," she whispered. "Not cool. I am _not_ food to be stored up for winter."

Settling the chestnuts more securely, she crept over to a wall and dug her fingers in between the mud-coated sticks and bones that made up the wall. Drawing a deep breath, she began to pull herself up the side, silently thanking Splinter for the hours of tree climbing he'd assigned her as strength training. Carefully, step by step, she moved up the side of the nest, trying very hard not to think about what the squirrelanoids had used to make it.

She'd made it about halfway up by the time they noticed her. A screech alerted her to her discovery, and she looked up to find one of the creatures clawing its way down the wall toward her. The creature screamed again as it lunged, and that hideous prehensile tongue-thing snaked its way toward her.

"Oh, no." Her eyes narrowing, she freed one hand to flick open her tessen. "Not this time." With a deft hitch of her wrist, she sent the tessen sailing toward the thing. The iron fan whirled through the air, slicing through both the tongue-thing and the second head jutting from the monster's mouth before it thunked solidly back into April's hand. With a bellow of rage, the squirrelanoid retreated, a spray of steaming green liquid dripping from the severed stump. She reared back out of the way of the spray, but as the green fluid fell, her handhold came loose, and she found herself tumbling with it. She braced herself for the impact, but as she struck the nest, the fluid that had gotten there first had eaten a hole clear through the bottom, and she found herself falling straight through it.

Screaming, she scrabbled at the edges of the hole, but the sticks and bones that made up the floor crumbled beneath her questing fingers and she fell into darkness. Time narrowed to a razor's edge as she dropped, helpless, into utter blackness, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn't see. She couldn't stop herself. This was it.

Without warning, something slammed into her from the side, driving the air from her lungs as she went from tumbling straight down to flying sideways. The motion stopped just as abruptly, her fingers dragged at the iron bar locked around her waist as she struggled to breathe.

It took her a moment to recover her wits enough to realize that the thing that held her pinned fast was a scale-covered arm.

"I got her!" Raph's voice called over her shoulder, answered by a resonant whoop from Donnie across the vast expanse of darkness. A small sound, half-sob, broke from her, and she turned to throw her arms around Raph's neck.

"Hey, easy there," he said softly, as his other arm came around her, stroking lightly down her back. "We gotcha." Keeping one arm tightly around her waist, he reached up for the rope hanging above his head. "Now let's get outta here, huh?"

"Uh, Raph?" April's eyes widened. "Why can I see you now?"

Raph blinked at her in the dim green light and glanced up. "Aw, sewer nuggets." Grabbing April off her feet, Raph kicked off the wall and swung down to where Donnie waited as the squirrelanoid horde swarmed down the wall toward her. "Go!" she cried. "Go go go go go!"

Letting out a squawk of alarm, Donnie started running the second April and Raph hit the ground, his naginata braced in front of him. But getting out wasn't going to be that easy. They appeared to be in some kind of abandoned warehouse, if the brackish water they were running through was any indication, and the nest she had fallen from wasn't the only one the squirrelanoids had constructed in the beams that supported the roof high overhead. In front of them, the doorway was illuminated by the glow from the heads of the dozen monsters lurking in wait.

Donnie skidded to a halt, his arm outstretched to stop April as she staggered to a halt behind him. As she felt Raph brace himself behind her, she looked at the ring of monsters slowly wading through the icy water toward them. "This isn't good, is it?"

"This?" She heard the metallic ring as Raph drew his sai. "This is just working up an appetite for dinner."

But there was a quaver in his voice that wasn't normally there, and it didn't exactly fill her with confidence and reassurance. April bit her lip, glancing up at the nests again, trying to figure out something, anything, that would get them out of this. Which was when her gaze fell upon a red-and-white sign far overhead, and she jabbed Donnie in the ribs, wincing as his shell bruised her elbow. She pointed upward when he glanced at her, and as he followed her pointing finger, his brows drew down with resolution.

That was one of the things she loved best about Donnie. So often, she didn't have to explain what she was thinking. He just _knew_.

"Raph!" Donnie was already moving, calling over his shoulder as he began scaling the beams. "Get April to the top of those crates! _Now_!"

Often, Raph would protest vociferously if Donnie tried to tell him what to do. But there was no questioning the resolution in his voice. April found herself yanked off her feet again as Raph bolted for the mountain of wooden shipping crates sitting nearby. The squirrelanoids reacted to their sudden movement, abandoning their slow creep to sprint toward them, but Donnie was faster. Even as Raph leaped for the crates, Donnie was drawing a tanto from his wrist wraps and flinging it with laser precision toward the thick cables beneath the warning signs up above. He fell along with the cable, and struck the crate next to April and Raph only seconds before the arcing cable hit the water. As Donnie teetered on the edge, his arms windmilling as he fought to keep his balance, Raph's hand shot out to grab the edge of his shell and yank him close. And then the two of them closed ranks around her, grabbing onto each other with April at the centre of the protective wall of shell as the world exploded around them.

* * *

When they staggered back into the lair, giddy and giggling, Mikey and Leo, could do nothing more than stare as they pushed their way through the turnstiles.

"April, girl," Mikey said at last, wiping his hands on the 'Kiss the Cook' apron he wore. "Love the new look, but I'm not really sure it says 'Christmas'."

Reaching a hand up, April brushed it against her hair, her fingers still dancing with tiny static shocks as they ran through the massive ball of frizz. With a grin, she shrugged. "Maybe you're right, Mikey. Why don't I go do something about it while you do something with these?" With that, she unzipped her coat, sending the chestnuts within tumbling to the floor.

As Mikey fell upon them with a crow of delight, Leo raised a brow at the three of them. "Anything I should know?" he asked, his voice ringing with suspicion.

"Nope," Raph said.

"Just dealing with a little pest control problem on the way home from shopping," Donnie added.

Snickering at both of them, April stepped forward and took hold of Leo's hand. "Come on. You can help me fix this mess." And she led a mollified Leo away, trailing the scent of ever-so-slightly-singed hair in her wake.

* * *

Dinner was everything she had hoped it would be, and even more. Leo had managed to get her looking presentable again, and if Splinter had wondered at the state of his students, he merely raised a brow and complimented April on her hair. They sat down to a veritable feast, chestnut stuffing and all, and it was glorious enough that April had followed the instructions on Mikey's apron and given him a heartfelt kiss on the cheek, earning them much hooting and hollering from the others.

She sat on her bed, curled up beneath the blankets in her favourite fleecy pyjamas, the ones with the scarf-wearing polar bears on the pants and sparkly snowflakes on the top. Her room was dark, her face lit by the glow of her Tphone as she scanned through the pictures she'd taken that night. One of herself and Mikey icing the Christmas cookies. Splinter, sitting distinguished at the head of the table with the paper crown from his Christmas cracker set over one ear at a jaunty angle. Raph and Leo fighting over the turkey drumstick. Mikey proudly beaming as he bore the Christmas pudding out from the kitchen. Mikey proudly setting the pudding on fire. Mikey watching in astonishment as the flames shooting up from the pudding reached the ceiling of the lair. Leo leaping in to douse the fire with the hard sauce. Raph wielding his coveted drumstick as a weapon as he chased a screaming Mikey around the room. Leo yelling at both of them to stop ruining Christmas. Herself, falling over herself laughing. Donnie, trying to figure out how to cryogenically freeze the leftovers.

Paging through another screen, she slowed, a little smile stealing across her face at the series of events captured in the next few photos. Dessert (slightly singed pudding and cookies) had ended around midnight, at which point Donnie had tapped her on the shoulder.

"Merry Christmas, April," he said, his smile warm enough to banish even the chill of the lair.

Mikey scooted in on her other side, taking her arm in his. "Check it out," he said, grinning ear-to-ear. "Santa's been here!"

April whipped her head around, and sure enough, there was another large box beneath the tree in addition to the ones she had placed there. She hadn't taken her eyes off the guys for more than a second - she _knew_ she hadn't - but there it was.

_Ninjas. Oy._

"Come, April." Splinter shooed his sons away from her and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Let us open the gifts before we return you home for the night."

At Splinter's gentle urging, she took a seat on the cushion that Donnie placed beneath the tree, and insisted that the others open theirs first. Her budget had been practically nonexistent this year, but she was incredibly proud of what she had done with so little.

She had more photos of those. Splinter admiring the calligraphy set she had found in a small shop in Chinatown to replace the old, cracked one he had scavenged years ago. Mikey crowing over an instructional book she had found on how to write and draw comics, and the pen set she had bought to go with it. Mikey using the pens to draw on Leo after he fainted following the reveal of her present - an autographed Space Heroes cast photo, and a one-hour internet chat session with Captain Ryan. Raph flipping through the _Kicks and Punches _magazine she had bought for him, finding the note hidden in its pages, and nonchalantly wandering off to locate the real present she'd bought him - a sketchbook and a set of artist's pencils, which she'd hidden behind the Atomic Robo-X game. And Donnie…. well, that one she'd been particularly proud of.

Donnie had gotten the extra-credit science project that had singlehandedly saved her from failing last year. In every spare moment she had when she wasn't at school or training with the guys, she'd been at the university learning how to sequence DNA. Her final project had been titled "Family Portrait," and featured seven lines of DNA electrophoresis, enlarged and printed in colours across across a clear acrylic background. The first of the lines was yellow, followed by dark orange, which aligned with the bands on the yellow line roughly half the time.

The next five were more interesting, to her at least. Blue, red, purple, and light orange, followed by brown. Those next four, while sharing no common bands with yellow or dark orange, shared several with each other, and with the brown line.

Donnie had said nothing as he looked at it. Just run his fingers over the title, printed neatly at the bottom, and looked at her with shining eyes. Then he had set the artwork carefully aside, crossed the room, and hugged her so hard that her feet left the ground.

Once again, with Donnie, she didn't have to explain. He just _knew._

But it was the last series of photos, taken by Mikey as he commandeered her Tphone, that brought the tears to her eyes. Leo had passed her the big box, which was lovingly wrapped with scraps of nice paper and festooned with brightly coloured ribbons.

"It's from all of us," Leo explained. "We all pitched in."

Curiosity driving her, she started undoing the dozens of ribbons that bound the package. She got stuck at one point, but the advantage of being in a family of ninjas was that when you started cursing at a stubborn knot, four knives materialized out of nowhere to help you cut through it. Finally, she had worked her way through the wrapping to the gift inside, and stared at what lay within the box.

One of the first notions that Splinter had done away with when he had begun her training was that, Foot ninja aside, ninja didn't usually wear a _shinobi shōzoku _- but that hadn't stopped her from longing for one anyway.

What lay inside was her own _shinobi_ _shōzoku, _reinforced with dark armour plates in many of the same places Karai had hers. But where Karai's was all sharp steel lines and functionality, April's had hints of yellow here and there, and almost imperceptible embroidery in the shape of the Hamato sigil. And as she drew out the sash that would fit around her waist, the buckle that fastened it bore not the Hamato sign, but the outline of a hand done in red.

_He had slipped up and called her 'Princess' one too many times, but as she bopped him on the head with the feather duster she was using to help clean the dojo, she had just laughed at the look in his stricken brown eyes. "You're not far off, you know. Dad loved to tell me about how the O'Neils are descended from the High Kings of Ulster. I used to think that the whole 'Foot' symbol thing was weird, until I remembered that the O'Neils tend to all have a red hand in their coat of arms somewhere." She bopped him again. "But that was a long time ago, Donnie, so knock it off, okay?"_

He'd remembered. They all had. There were touches of all of them in the outfit. From the careful stitching of the flowers to the cunning spaces to hide weaponry in the armour plates, all of it spoke of stories she'd told in unguarded moments to all of the brothers and to her _sensei._ She didn't miss the symbolism of the flowers and the hand together, either. Two families, united. She was part of the Hamato clan while still retaining her ties to the father who had raised her...

They had made her try it on, and the successive photos were of Mikey attempting to play fashion photographer, positioning her into an increasingly bizarre series of poses until Leo had stepped in and made him stop. She hadn't minded, though; it had channeled the overwhelming tidal wave of emotion she was feeling into laughter instead of tears.

Sighing, she turned off the Tphone and set it on the table next to the bed, burrowing her way beneath the covers. It had been an incredible night. An incredible Christmas, though it was still only in the wee hours of Christmas morning. Really, there was only one thing that could have made it better...

She was interrupted in her thoughts by a soft, metallic sound from outside. Instantly awake again, April flung off the covers and raced to the window, yanking it open, but the fire escape was empty.

Almost.

Before she had gone to bed, she had quietly liberated a pound of hamburger and a bunch of bananas from her aunt's kitchen and left them outside, wrapped up in a little gold ribbon. Both were gone now, and she could almost have attributed their absence to the stray cats that roamed the city, were it not for the steaming pile left in its place. In addition to the fast-food wrappers, moths, and a small dead mouse that lay within the pile of goo, there was a gleaming knife clearly liberated from a hapless foot soldier still within its sheath, a long, thin strand of crystals between two leather cords that was designed to wrap several times around the wrist as a bracelet, and a large red bow from one of the festive arrangements that sat beneath the streetlamps on her street, half its flocking now dissolved away.

Nudging the garbage and the dead animals carefully over the side of the fire escape with a stick, she carefully picked the tanto and the bracelet out of the goo. Looking up into the dark, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could hear the whisper of large, leathery wings.

"Merry Christmas, Daddy," she whispered.

And in that moment, despite everything, it truly was.


	5. Home for the Holidays

_This was originally a gift for the fabulous Jinja-neko, and came as an extension of the askthehamato post about how they celebrate the holidays. It also helps if you read the Christmas story, but it's not essential. _

_Happy new year, everyone._

* * *

**Home for the Holidays**

April leaned her head against the window as the car moved through the streets. What should have been quiet sidewalks at this time of night – quiet for New York, anyway – were brimming with people. Couples, groups of friends, parents and children, all laughing, their faces upturned to the falling snow. The white flakes danced in the light of the passing streetlamps, and April tried to put on a happy face as she watched.

She hadn't wanted to go away. She'd wanted to stay in New York. But with Grandma getting older and travel getting harder, it just made more sense for everyone to go out to Cousin Ben's in Massachusetts for Christmas; he had the biggest house and the most space for all the young cousins to run around in. And it had meant being out of the city for the holiday. Her aunt hadn't said anything about it, but April was pretty sure that she had ulterior motives for getting April away from the city for the holidays, wanting to spare her from the memories conjured up by the lights and the laughter.

Losing the house had been hard. The landlord had given them some leeway when her father had been abducted – the man wasn't a total Scrooge – but as the months dragged on while Kirby was a prisoner of the Kraang, there'd been no way to pay the rent. Eventually, the landlord simply couldn't give April any more time, and her aunt didn't make enough to cover the rent on two properties.

She hadn't told the guys. Hadn't been able to figure out _how_ to tell them. She'd just quietly packed up all their things one weekend and let her aunt help her move them all into storage. Coming back to find out they were homeless had been a huge shock for Kirby after his rescue, but her aunt's house was big enough, and they were together, and it was only going to be a matter of time before he found a new job and got back on his feet and they could find a place of their own again.

And then came the mutagen.

When she'd run out on the turtles that night, she hadn't gone back to her aunt's house straight away. She had spent a long time wandering the streets, weeping and bereft, trying to figure out what she was going to _say_. When her father had been abducted, that at least had been something that _happened_ to people – though, granted, they weren't usually abducted by _aliens_, unless late night TV was to be believed – but even when it had been something within the realm of possibility, nobody had believed her story. And now…

In the end, she had gone home, and smiled at her aunt, and told her that Kirby was going to pick up some takeout and that they should set the table.

And she had sat at the table she knew her father would never come home to, watching her aunt's expression shift from impatience, to irritation, to fear when her father failed to answer his phone. April let her aunt deal with the police report this time, merely filling in the blanks when prompted. Yes, her dad had gone up to the roof with her to help her with her homework. Yes, he'd gone to pick up dinner when they'd finished. No, she hadn't seen him since.

She'd kept the claw marks on her shoulders carefully covered. They'd raise too many questions she didn't want to answer.

And so it all started again. The quiet conferences with teachers who pulled her aside in class and told her that they'd make accommodations… but only for so long. The looks from her classmates, who despite her efforts to keep it quiet, somehow knew anyway that April O'Neil's dad was missing _again. _The fights with her aunt, who found herself once again thrust into the role she'd never signed on for, as the primary caretaker of a smart, opinionated, wounded teenage girl.

Was it any wonder that by the time she had finally mended fences with the turtles, she had been half-mad with the need to talk to someone, _anyone_, who knew exactly what she was feeling? Or why the first thing she'd done when she'd gone home the night after her return to the lair was lock herself in her room and cry into her pillow for hours from the sheer overwhelming surge of emotions.

It had been Mikey who'd finally gotten the truth out of her. She wasn't even entirely sure how he'd managed it. One minute, they were talking about her collection of action figures, and she'd let the fact that they were all in storage now just sort of…slip. He hadn't missed it though. Maybe it was the words themselves, or maybe it was the small hitch in her voice, but something alerted him and she found herself the focus of his intent stare. Mikey when he was focused on himself could be scary, and a person could find herself completely swept aside in the wake of his self-indulgence. Mikey when he was focused on _you _was downright terrifying, and sometimes the depths of the compassion that lurked beneath his scatterbrained naiveté threatened to overwhelm her. But he'd listened as she'd broken down, moving at one point to rub her shoulders, occasionally murmuring things like "cleansing breaths, April." By the end of it, she had crawled into his lap, crying into his shoulder as he held her tightly, but he'd said no more about it. She had thought that would be the end of it. But she had underestimated the depths of both his understanding and his determination.

In the end, Michelangelo recruited his father. It had been Splinter who had suggested that April bring her Christmas things to the lair and put up a tree. She'd put one up to indulge Mikey the year before, but it had been a simple little thing with a few drugstore ornaments – she'd still been holding on to hope that she'd need her own decorations for herself and her father, and she'd set their own tree up at the empty apartment, back before she'd been evicted. Blinking at Splinter in astonishment, she'd stammered something along the lines of "but I didn't think you guys really celebrated Christmas."

To which he had just smiled and rested a hand against her shoulder. "No. But you do."

They'd held their festivities on Christmas Eve - big turkey dinner and everything. And first thing Christmas morning, April had returned to her aunt's to get carted off to the big house in the country, where she'd endured even more staring, and conversations halting abruptly when she walked into a room, and people pretending that everything was normal when in the end, all she'd wanted to do was scream and break something.

She hadn't thought she could miss the city so much, but the relief she felt as they wove their way through the familiar streets felt like a weight lifting from her chest, and she could finally breathe again. The second they arrived home, April wasted little time in running her suitcase up to her room and throwing the few necessities she needed to an overnight bag.

Her aunt was standing in the hallway when April emerged, and April had a momentary pang of guilt over the fact that she was essentially abandoning her on New Year's Eve. But her aunt had seen the struggle April had gone through out in the country, and the look she turned on April was one of understanding as she stepped forward and hugged her niece, and April was left with a fleeting, half-formed thought, wondering just _which_ side of the family her particular gift had come from.

"Have a good time," her aunt said, and her tone was half wish, and half command.

April smiled and nodded, settling the strap of her bag more firmly over her shoulder. "I will." There was a slight pause before she added, "thank you," and there were layers of emotion in those two words that her aunt needed no help in decoding. She picked up a bottle sporting a large red bow from the side table, offering it to April with a smile. "This is for you and your friends."

April glanced at the label and grinned. "Non-alcoholic champagne. We'll be living the high life tonight."

"Don't be sassy," her aunt retorted, giving April's rear a gentle swat as she headed for the door. "See you soon?"

With another smile, April nodded, and let the door close behind her. The second she was out of sight, she was running toward the lair.

* * *

As she pushed through the turnstiles, her arms laden down with bags thanks to a quick stopover at Murakami's, she took a moment to appreciate the silent lair. The Christmas tree still stood in the corner, its coloured lights dancing off the ornaments that rotated gently in the omnipresent drafts that always blew through the sewers. As she stepped in, carefully wiping her boots on the "Happy Ho-Ho-Holidays!" mat she had chosen for the apartment when she was nine, she spied a few of her favourites on the tree: the little brass unicorn with her name on it that her mom had bought for April's first Christmas; the little head made out of a cotton-stuffed nylon with orange yarn hair and button eyes that she had made during a "Christmas in Victorian Times" museum visit in the second grade; the sparkly _Dauntless_ ornament she had given her father two years ago.

Strings of lights dripped from the pipes overhead, highlighting the countless other decorations and ornaments that she and Kirby had accumulated over the years, which now hung from every available surface. As well as the Christmas decorations that had been up before she'd left for the country, the guys' _kadomatsu_ now stood on either side of the turnstiles. In addition to the bamboo, pine, and straw that she'd learned was traditional, the brothers had also added their own embellishments to the new year's decorations – the one to the right of the door had action figures lurking around the base of it and paper cranes hanging from the pine boughs, and the one on the left was adorned with shuriken and a garland made of computer resistors wired together into a chain.

"Sweet, April's here!" crowed a voice over her shoulder, and April jumped with a small shriek. You'd think, after all this time, she'd be used to the ninja-ing.

Mikey reached out to steady her and plucked the bags from her hands, passing them off to the brothers who had appeared behind him. "Come on, they can get this stuff ready. You and I are going to get _you_ ready!_"_

"Um… help?" April glanced over at Raph as Mikey grabbed her hands and started dragging her toward the bedrooms.

"Hey, last year we did the firework thing. Which was fun," Raph said, grinning.

"But this year, we're doing it _our_ way," Leo finished, resting his elbow against Raph's shoulder.

"Hey, Murakami-san put _kagami mochi_ in here!" Donnie cried happily, peering into one of the bags.

April blinked at them, completely lost and still overwhelmed by Hurricane Mikey. "What?"

"Chill, April. Trust us. You're in good hands." Mikey turned his thousand-watt grin on her, and April was pulled helplessly in his wake.

She found herself staring around the room in disbelief as Mikey's door closed behind her. "Wow. I don't think I've ever seen your room this clean before."

He shrugged as he crossed the room to his bed, the sheets in pristine order. "You hafta clean on _Ōmisoka. _It's, like, the law or something." Picking up a box from the bed, he held it out to her eagerly. "This is for you. Sensei says it's to make up for all the years when you were a kid that you didn't get _otoshidama_ for _shogatsu._"

"What for the what now?" April took the box, eyeing it curiously.

"Presents for New Year." Mikey poked her impatiently in the ribs, making her squeak. "Apriiiiil. Open iiiiiit."

"All right, all right," she said, swatting at his hand. "Yeesh. Be patient." She set the box down on the nearest solid surface, which happened to be a large wooden crate, and pulled it open.

It took her a moment of blinking at the bright fabric before she figured out what lay inside. Her hands shaking a little, she pulled out her present and held it up to herself. It was some kind of kimono, done in yellow fabric covered in sprays of little white flowers – flowers she recognized, for she saw their image around the lair every day. The white of each flower was accented with touches of colour – pinks, purples, blues, reds, and greens. "Mikey…" she breathed. She had thought her Christmas present from Splinter and the boys was amazing, but this… this… "I don't—" her voice cracked a little, and she swallowed hard.

Coming up behind her, Mikey placed a hand on her shoulder and went up on his toes to kiss her cheek. "You had a rough year. We wanted you to have something nice for the new one."

She turned to him, her eyes shining a little. "But… I don't know how…" she gestured at the box.

"Pssh. That's why I'm here." He tugged the kimono out of her hands and pulled another robe out of the box, this one in a lighter white fabric. "Put this on and I'll help you out with the rest." With a leap, he threw himself onto his bed, and on the first bounce, she watched in astonishment as his head and limbs retracted into his shell. "I'm not looking!" came his muffled voice. "Go ahead!"

Bemused, April quickly divested herself of her coat and most of her outerwear, though she kept on the tights that she had put on beneath her jeans to ward off the chill of the lair in December. Slipping into the white garment, she pulled it closed. "Okay."

Mikey peered out of his shell and immediately started giggling. "No, no, no. Guuurl, you _never_ wear it like that unless you're dead." He mimed swapping the closure. "Other way."

She could feel her face heating as she switched the overlapping sides, and Mikey nodded in approval. The next few moments were a confusion of fabric as Mikey tucked, tied, and adjusted things, but as he held up a cracked mirror for her perusal, she couldn't help but let out a little squeak of delight. "It's so pretty!"

Mikey snorted. "Like we'd put you in anything that wasn't."

There was a soft tapping at the door before she could snap out a comeback, and Leo entered at Mikey's shouted invitation, smiling as he saw her. "You look nice."

But April was too busy staring to respond. Leo was wearing a… what was it called? Hakama? Something like that... in shades of blue and grey, and for the first time since she'd known them, he wasn't wearing his mask in front of her. "Wow, Leo. You look… wow."

His grin widened. "Thanks April." Raising a brow at her, he folded his arms. "But let's do something about that hair, huh?"

"Aww!" Mikey had started pulling a slightly-wrinkled hakama of his own out of the wooden crate when Leo entered, but he glanced up in dismay at Leo's words. "I wanna do it!"

"Last time you did it, she ended up with a teased side-ponytail."

"That was pretty!"

"It's_ Ōmisoka_ Mikey, not an 80s dance movie." He glanced at April. "Unless that's what April wants."

_Oh, you jerk_. She stuck her tongue out at him in thanks for putting her on the spot before turning to face Mikey. "I've already had a Mikey-style for one special occasion," she said consolingly. "Let's let Leo try something new this time, okay?"

Mikey's face fell. "Okay," he said glumly, but then brightened again almost immediately. "But I get to do the _kanzashi_!"

"Uhhh…" April glanced at Leo, who gave an imperceptible nod. "…sure!"

As Mikey let out a whoop and bounded off somewhere, April let out a sigh of relief. She retrieved her brush from her overnight bag and passed it over to Leo before freeing her hair from its ponytail and pulling her hairband loose. Perching on the edge of the bed, she closed her eyes as Leo began to pull the brush through her hair. She never really understood his fascination with her hair, but there were times she had to admit, having someone else brush it felt really comforting. It reminded her a bit of when her dad had done it when she was little – well, after she'd outgrown the screaming, fighting phase.

"Leo?" she ventured, running a hand along the silk edge of one of her sleeves. "It's not that I'm not grateful or anything, but—"

"April, if anyone deserves something really nice this year, it's you." He tapped her gently on the head with the brush. "Now quit worrying and let yourself enjoy it."

"But—"

"If you keep that up, I'll make you take back the presents you got us for Christmas."

Splinter always said that a good kunoichi knew when she was beaten. Giving a quiet huff of laughter, she closed her eyes. "Fine."

Mikey chose that moment to bound back into the room with something clutched in his hands. Beaming, he passed it off to April, who stared at it in amazement. It was a hair ornament, made to look like a spray of yellow and white flowers crafted from shimmering organza, with little crystals glittering at the centre of each one. "How…?"

"The internet is a wonderful thing," said Leo.

Mikey plucked the ornament from her hands and set it carefully in her hair. "There," he said, and stood back to look her over in satisfaction. "Yeah. That'll do." He picked up the mirror and handed it to her before starting to make himself ready.

As Mikey removed his mask and began to struggle into his hakama, eventually prompting Leo to leave April's side to go and help him in a very big-brotherly, 'no _this_ is how you're supposed to tie that!' kind of way, she couldn't take her eyes off her reflection. She was still herself, but she looked different. She looked… looked…

Her glance drifted up to where Leo was straightening something he called a haori as Mikey rolled his eyes and mimicked his brother's words in a higher pitch.

She looked like a part of this family.

As soon as Leo had deemed Mikey presentable, Michelangelo ducked out from beneath his brother's fussing hands and seized April by hers. "Come _on_ already, let's go!"

Laughing, April let Mikey drag her out of his room and across the lair to the dojo as Leo followed at a more sedate pace. As Mikey hauled her through the door, she noted that the TV had been moved into the corner of the dojo; Raph knelt in front of it, nicely dressed in his own hakama, watching what appeared to be a team of Japanese girls singing their hearts out.

"How's the red team doing?" Mikey asked.

"They're doing _awesome,_" Raph said, only a little annoyed at the obviousness of the question. "They're the _red_ team."

That was met with a quiet cheer of "white teeeeam," from Leo, and a sigh from Mikey.

"I wish we could vote," Mikey said.

"It's on time delay from Japan," came Donnie's voice as he struggled across the room beneath the burden of a large straw wreath. "It actually happened hours ag-ooof!" He'd caught sight of April about halfway across the room, and walked straight into the tree. The Christmas ornaments Mikey had hung in its branches trembled at the impact, and one of them broke free with a tingling ping, heading straight for Donnie's head as he sprawled beneath it. Before it could hit, though, Leo was there, snagging the ornament from the air and reaching up to place it back in the branches.

"Smooth, Romeo," Leo said to the brother at his feet.

Donnie scowled at him. "Shut up, Leo."

"Both of you shut up," Raph snapped. "Red team is getting to the best part!"

As Leo helped Donnie up and they placed the straw wreath over one of the weapons racks, April tugged on Mikey's sleeve. "What's the show?"

Mikey blinked at her for a second before understanding dawned on his face. "Oh, right, you wouldn't know. See, every New Year's Eve, a bunch of singers get together and compete. The red team is the girls, and the white team is the guys. Then the judges and the audience vote, and they pick a winner before midnight." He gestured at the screen. "We can't call in and vote though because it's already tomorrow in Japan."

"Sensei likes to feel like we're really there," Donnie said, coming up on April's other side. His face was a little pink, and April felt an answering blush rise to her cheeks.

"You look great," she said, gesturing at his haori.

"Youhgrrahahaha," he responded, in an odd mix of fumbled compliment and giggle.

"That means 'you too,'" Leo translated for April, and he patted Donnie's shell. "Come on. We've still got to drag the kotatsu out of storage."

"It's not going to set us on fire, is it?" Mikey asked, his eyes wide with concern.

Donatello glared at him. "No," he said, his voice ringing with indignation. "Not again, anyway. I fixed the problem."

As Leo dragged Donnie off, April turned back to the screen. "So… do you guys always watch this?"

Mikey grinned. "You know that thing with the stop-motion elves you made us watch because it's not Christmas unless you watch it?"

"Yeah?"

He waved at the TV. "This is our stop-motion elves."

"Only, you know, not lame," Raph added.

April drew out the tessen she had tucked into her obi (which was a dark rose, embroidered with tiny flowers of a slightly lighter shade) and whacked him across the shell with it before she knelt down next to him. "So who are we rooting for?"

"Red team," Mikey and Raph chorused.

"Leo and Donnie like the white team," said Raph. "But they're crazy."

April tilted her head, watching curiously as the girls were replaced by a row of five impeccably dressed and incredibly attractive young Japanese men, who began to sing in a heartbreaking perfect harmony. "I dunno, I'm starting to see the appeal of the white team."

"Traitor," Raph muttered.

"No, she just has good taste," Leo quipped as he and Donnie re-entered, carrying a table between them.

For the next few moments, all four of the boys were occupied with placing the table in front of the TV, arranging the heavy blanket that trailed off all four sides, setting cushions around it, and most curiously, finding an extension cord to plug in the wire trailing from it, though she couldn't quite make out why anyone would want to plug in a table.

As April watched with bemusement, a soft hand fell upon her shoulder, and she looked up at her sensei. He, too, had changed, his robes now a formal set that matched the ones the boys wore, and he smiled down upon her. "I am very glad you decided to join us this year, April."

"Oh, Sensei," April gestured down at her kimono, suddenly flustered. "I just… I love it, thank you _so_ much, but you didn't have to-"

"April," he admonished gently. "Your coming here has brought light into our home, and it gives-me joy to see you attired so. We did not _have_ to. We _wanted_ to." He patted her shoulder before dropping his hand to his side. "Will you help me with the tea while my sons are occupied?"

Smiling, April nodded, and they left the boys to their bickering.

When she and Splinter returned with the tea, the turtles had managed to sort out the table to their satisfaction and arranged themselves around it with the heavy blanket draped over their laps. April accepted a cushion next to Donnie with some trepidation, but was delighted to discover that it was _warm_ under the table - a welcome experience given the normal draftiness of the lair.

For the next hour or so, they watched the program with an intensity April had only ever seen when Leo was watching Space Heroes, bickering with each other and cheering over song and wardrobe choices. She couldn't understand much of the singing, but it was entertaining enough that she didn't need to, and between the warmth of the tea, the table, and her adopted brothers, she was cozier than she remembered being in a long time. Her cup was never empty, either - as soon as she even came close to finishing her tea, one of the boys was refilling it before she could reach for the pot. It would have annoyed her, but she noticed they were doing it for each other, too. Apparently, no one was allowed to fill their own cups tonight. She filed that away for future reference, and settled in to enjoy the shows - both the one on the television, and the one playing out between the brothers, who were growing increasingly competitive over the singing competition.

It was different, but in the best possible way. While the family was often together, it was rarely this...domestic. But even Splinter had seated himself at the table with the rest of them, offering the occasional cutting remark about pitchiness or awkward lyrics, and it was a side of him she was enjoying getting to know. She didn't often see him this relaxed – or the dojo this festive, for that matter.

At one point, while the white team was involved in a particularly complicated song and dance routine, she noticed an addition to the altar - some kind of ornament, made up of two white blobs on a lacquered stand, with what looked like a fan stuck into an orange on the top. She prodded Donnie with her tessen and pointed at it with a raised brow.

"Oh, that's the _kagami mochi_ Murakami-san sent," he said, keeping his voice low so that he didn't interrupt the singing.

"What are the white things?" she asked, indicating the white blobs on the bottom.

"Mochi. Ummm...rice cake things."

"We get to eat them next Sunday," Mikey whispered, sidling in on April's other side. "That's when we'll have our first real practice of the year." He beamed at her. "We get an almost-vacation until then!"

"Shhh!" Raph hissed at them. "This is the last song."

Leo had vanished while Donnie was explaining the _kagami mochi_ to her, but he reappeared not long afterward bearing a large tray filled with carefully-balanced plates of noodles. Donnie and Mikey leaped up to help him distribute them as the red team began their last song.

"Murakami?" April guessed.

"He did all the food for us this year," Leo replied, resuming his seat at the table. "Wait till you see what we have for the next three days."

April had caught a glimpse of the elaborate feast packed into several gorgeous lacquered boxes before Mr. Murakami had packed them up and sent her off with them, locking up the shop after her so that he could attend his own festivities with his family. If the food tasted anywhere _near_ as good as it looked, she'd probably be rolling home by the end of the three days of celebration the boys had planned. She picked up her chopsticks and prepared to dig in.

"Man, this is _so _much better when it's noodles instead of worms!" Mikey crowed.

April took a second glance at her noodles in consternation, but they remained reassuringly plain noodles topped with some of Murakami's homemade tempura. As the boys and Splinter tucked in around her, she reflected on the words Splinter had spoken to her as they had gotten the tea.

_This is a time of letting go,_ he had told her. _The new year is for new beginnings. This evening, you can reflect upon those burdens you wish to leave behind, and set them aside as we cross from the old year into the new._

That, she thought, was an idea she could really get behind.

About fifteen minutes before midnight, the program drew to a close - red team won, and Leo and Donnie took the loss with far more grace than Raph and Mikey likely would have. The losers cleared the plates, and as midnight drew near, the time-delayed broadcast switched from the concert venue to an outdoor view of some kind of shrine. Crowds of people had gathered in the courtyard, smiling and laughing, but they fell silent as a song began to play.

Around her, the boys drew closer, Mikey singing quietly under his breath, and she could _feel_ the change in energy in the air around her. She found her heart speeding up in anticipation, even though she really had very little idea of what was going on. As the song ended, the crowd began to chant. She recognized the Japanese numbers as the boys began to count down - she'd had to learn one through ten in order to count off her exercises - and she added her voice to theirs, tentative at first, but growing louder as they drew closer to 'one.'. And as they finished, cheering erupted from the crowd on the TV as a man within the shrine began to beat a giant drum. April found herself suddenly in Mikey's arms, and she laughed as he kissed her cheek, earning a sound of frustration from Donnie behind her that was nearly drowned out by Raph and Leo as they added their voices to the crowd.

"Make a wish, April," Mikey whispered into her ear. "First wishes of the year are important."

The low, rolling sound of a massive bell began to ring in the shrine, and as the boys fell respectfully silent, Splinter produced the bottle April's aunt had given her, gracing her with a smile. "This is a night for your traditions as well," he said. "But first, there is one more of ours that we must observe."

Mikey gave a little squeak of excitement, and April followed his attention to the doorway. Leo had vanished again while Splinter was talking, and he stood in the doorway now, carrying a little bowl filled with rice. The bowl, in the shape of a turtle, showed signs of a long life of love and care, crazed with cracks where it had been broken and mended on more than one occasion. April straightened a little, recognizing this tradition from their stories. The first offering of the year to the altar in the dojo was a special one, and the honour of making it was given each year to the member of the family who had shown the most progress throughout the previous year. Mikey had bragged about being chosen last year for more than a month. She glanced around eagerly to see which of the brothers had earned the coveted honour this time.

It wasn't until Mikey started giggling that April became fully aware of the fact that Leo had stopped in front of her, and was holding the bowl out to her with an expression of fond exasperation.

"What? _Me?_" she breathed, looking to Splinter, but he merely nodded with a smile. "But…. I don't know what to do…. I…."

"Just make the offering and say what's in your heart," Leo said quietly. "It's okay."

Her eyes wide, she turned back to Splinter, and her sensei's smiling face wavered for a moment as her eyes pricked with tears. Wiping them away with the back of her hand, she bowed low toward him before rising to her feet, carefully taking the bowl from Leo and approaching the shrine.

Tang Shen's face stared down at her with gentle benevolence as April stopped in front of the photograph, her hands shaking a little. Looking down at the offering in her hands, she took strength from the cheerful face of the turtle-bowl peering over the rice, and raised her gaze again to the picture.

_Say what's in your heart…_

She kept her voice low, and the others kept a respectful distance. This was a conversation for the women of the family. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. "This has been the worst year of my life," she said, her vision blurring again. "But the people in it have been the best. I don't know where I'd be without them, and I don't _want_ to know." Mikey had told her to make a wish, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what that was, but even as she remembered it, her hands tightened a little on the bowl, and the tremor faded from her voice. "Gaining four brothers is the best thing that's ever happened to me. It doesn't make up for what I lost. But they give me the strength to get through it." Slowly, she made a deep, respectful bow toward the woman and the baby in the picture, and reached up to place the bowl atop the altar. "Thank you," she whispered, "for letting me be part of your family. I promise I'll take good care of them for you."

She turned back to be greeted by the beaming faces of her brothers, and her Sensei's silent approval. Leo opened his arms, and she raced into them, laughing as he lifted her briefly off the ground before setting her back down and letting her reclaim her spot at the table.

And so they sat, drinking the sparkling grape juice April's aunt had provided as the turtles attempted to teach April a card game that seemed to involve a suspicious amount of yelling and ninjutsu, until a combination of the late hour and the warmth of the table caused her eyes to grow heavy. Unable to help herself, she slipped quietly into sleep, her head coming to rest against Donnie's shoulder.

* * *

It was the odd juxtaposition of cold and warmth that woke her, and she blinked groggily into the darkness, completely at a loss. Then, as her eyes slowly adjusted, she became aware of the skeletal forms of trees in the darkness around her, and the crunch of snow beneath several pairs of ninja feet nearby. And the giant shape silhouetted against the lightening sky above her…

Splinter. She was wrapped in a thick padded blanket, and Splinter held her in his arms.

"Ah good," he said, before she had time to be mortified. "I was wondering if you would wake in time." He set her down on the snow, and she allowed herself a momentary pang of regret. It had been a long time since she had been carried like that, but that feeling of being cherished by a father… she missed it.

Someone had jammed her boots onto her feet, and though they were on the wrong feet and looked odd peeping out beneath the hem of her kimono, they protected her from the bite of the snow. She wrapped the blanket more tightly around herself, and it was joined a few seconds later by Mikey's arms.

"First sunrise," he told her. "Also very important."

Leo pressed something into her hand, and she looked down to see a steaming cup of... something. She sipped it carefully, her eyes widening at the taste of warm, sweetened alcohol, and she glanced at Splinter with a question in her eyes.

He chuckled softly. "A very small amount is allowed on this night." He cleared his throat. "You may not want to tell your aunt."

She giggled, but the sweet, warm sake banished the last of the chill.

Slowly, Raph and Leo drifted closer, and she reached for Donnie's hand. His massive fingers closed carefully around hers, surrounding it with strength and warmth and keeping the cold at bay. Smiling, April leaned her head against Mikey's as they turned to face the east, and as the sun broke over the horizon, painting the snow-covered trees and the waters of the pond before them with gold, she let out a long, happy sigh.

The year had been one of challenges, and sorrows, and heartbreak. But that was the old year. Her gaze drifted downward, to the sparkling bracelet wrapped several times around her wrist. It had taken a long time to get it properly clean, but the strand of crystals glittered like the snow in the light of dawn. She would leave the old year behind, and focus on the year of new beginnings. New discoveries. New ways to help her father, to stop the Kraang, to bring the shadows in her life to light. Because she was part of the greatest family in the world, and as she stood, surrounded by her four brothers, watched over by their sensei, she was certain that together, they _would_ triumph in the end.


End file.
